


Universal Constants

by AidaRonan



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of blood and injuries, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 03:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18274922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidaRonan/pseuds/AidaRonan
Summary: “They took me back in,” Bucky says. “I got lucky.”“This is lucky?” Steve stares at an obvious stab wound on his lower torso, letting off a steady stream of nebulous red clouds that wisp and dissipate like smoke.“There’s words in my head, shit they can say that would take away everything I got back when you-” Bucky finally moves, lazily trailing one hand back and forth through the stained water next to his thigh, closing his eyes as though the sound soothes him. “They didn’t know the words.”“You and me got our own words though, huh?” Steve asks.Or the one where an injured post-WS breaks into Steve's apartment and Steve takes care of him.





	Universal Constants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goandgetthegunarchive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goandgetthegunarchive/gifts).



Sam gets his attention, forcing him to pull his eyes up from the floor of the quinjet. They’re on their way back from an abandoned Hydra base somewhere north of Wiseman, Alaska. Another dead lead, and Steve can’t stop the ever-deepening sick feeling inside of him that tells him the longer he goes without finding Bucky, the less likely it is that he ever will.

“Damn, would you look at that,” Sam says, whistling low, and Steve snaps his head up, following Sam’s line of sight. Outside the windows of the aircraft, the New York skyline looms, bathed in deep reds and golds with the setting sun, the horizon a curved indigo line against the blood orange sky. It’s gorgeous, the kind of thing that Steve would want to immortalize on canvas if he could even think about doing anything but searching and hoping and searching some more.

They land on top of Stark Tower a few minutes later, the quinjet pretty much taking itself down with the slightest supervision from Sam and Nat. After that, Steve spaces out. He’s saying a quick good-bye to both of them, vaguely registering laughs and talk about grabbing burgers and a drink, and slipping onto his bike in the underground garage.

“God, Buck, where are you?” he asks, the roar of the motor drowning him out, though no one’s around to hear him anyway.

When he steps into his modest Brooklyn walk-up, he drops his keys onto the counter next to the door. Muscle memory has him pulling off the shield as well, ready to prop it against the wall before toeing off his shoes.

But instead he freezes, his whole body going rigid. The shield shifts from the tips of his fingers onto his arm with barely a whisper of fabric. Someone’s in his apartment. He furrows his brow and stills his lungs so that there’s no sound save the tiny hint of street noise outside.  
  
Silence, silence.  
  
There.

Three seconds later, he crashes into the bathroom, dropping the shield before he even pushes open the door.

Bucky doesn’t stir, the metal arm hanging over the side of Steve’s bath tub, the other tucked up under his chin. Steve takes in the whole picture before him. There are bruises all over Bucky’s body in vicious shades of purple, yellow, and green. Cuts and scrapes mar his naked skin, some still oozing into the pink bathwater.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, barely a whisper.

There are several beats of silence before Bucky answers, choking out, “Steve” as though he had to force it through several layers of gravel first.

Steve falls to the floor, his knees banging roughly into the tile. Except he doesn’t know what to do beyond what he wants to do so desperately. His hands hover over Bucky’s body, shaking in the air.

“Can I-” Steve starts, faltering and shaking his head. “Let me help you.”

Bucky responds by drawing his legs up closer, shifting the metal arm so that it functions like a shield over his chest.

“Don’t.”

“You came here, Bucky. You had to know I’d wanna help.”

“Every time I think I’ve remembered all of them, there’s someone else,” Bucky says. “Steve, your friends, are-”

“They’re both fine,” Steve says. “I just saw them. They were helping me. Helping me look for you, Buck.”

“Well, you found me. What’s left anyway.”

“Did-” Steve swallows, his hands still occupying the air above Bucky’s body. “Did Hydra do this to you?” He gestures at a particularly nasty bruise on Bucky’s knee. In a twisted way, it reminds him of the sunset earlier on the jet—yellow skin blending into a gradient of different purples. It’s the hint of green that ruins the image, turning it all into something sad and sick.

“They took me back in,” Bucky says. “I got lucky.”

“This is lucky?” Steve stares at an obvious stab wound on his lower torso, letting off a steady stream of nebulous red clouds that wisp and dissipate like smoke.

“There’s words in my head, shit they can say that would take away everything I got back when you-” Bucky finally moves, lazily trailing one hand back and forth through the stained water next to his thigh, closing his eyes as though the sound soothes him. “They didn’t know the words.”

“You and me got our own words though, huh?” Steve asks. He can almost feel Bucky’s hair between his fingers. “You pulled me from the Potomac.”

“Yeah. Took me a few days to remember why.”

“We’ll do our best to get rid of them, the words.” Steve keeps his hands off Bucky, though it takes more effort than any battle he’s ever fought not to touch him somewhere, anywhere. “But if they ever got you back, if they ever made you forget again—Buck, the only reason they had you for so long was because I wasn’t around and because when I woke up, I still thought you were gone. But I know now, and I would not stop looking, haven’t stopped looking. If I have to burn the world to ashes to do it, as long as I’m still breathing, those goddamned Nazi bastards can’t have you.”

Bucky finally makes eye contact, slowly sliding his eyes up from the side of the tub to meet Steve’s. They look tired, red-rimmed with dark half-moons beneath them. One of them holds a faint yellow that spreads out around it like watercolor.

All these years, and he’s still the most beautiful man Steve has ever seen.

“Let me help you,” Steve says softly. “God knows you did it enough for me.”

A beat of silence, and then.

“Okay.”

Steve reaches and Bucky flinches away.

“Just tell me everything you’re doing first. I don’t want-” 

“Sure, anything you need.” Steve draws back. “Let me get a couple things.”

He pushes himself up off the floor after that, headed for the vanity. He’s lived in the apartment for months, but something about having Bucky here has scrambled things in his head. He can’t remember what drawers the rags are in, where the first aid kit is, where he keeps the spare toothbrushes.

He opens each drawer in succession, plucking out things and tossing them onto the counter. In the third drawer, he comes across a nice soft bath sponge he’d been sent as a gift—some company who wanted him to use it and tweet or instagram or chatsnap or whatever. He clutches it instead of looking for a wash cloth, pulling the plastic wrapping off. If anyone in the world deserves something soft, it’s…

Bucky’s still looking at him when he slowly eases back down onto the floor by the tub.

“I’m going to wet this,” Steve says, slowly moving to dip it into the water. “I’ll start with the scratches first, okay? It’ll probably sting.”

Bucky jerks his chin down once, and Steve starts on a scrape on his right bicep, keeping every movement even and deliberate. Squeezing lukewarm water from the sponge, Steve watches it turn pinker as it slowly cuts through dried blood.

“Bucky.”

“Steve?”

“Can I run you another bath?”

Bucky doesn’t answer right away. The plates of his arm whir quietly from top to bottom, almost like they’re doing some thinking of their own.

“You gotta pay for water?”

Steve swallows, his fingers twitching.

“I do, but money’s not a concern for us anymore, Buck. Wouldn’t be for this even if it was.”

Bucky processes that.

“Okay.”

“Draining it now.” Steve telegraphs his movement to the tiny metal knob that controls the drain and flicks it, the pink whirlpooling away. He works in the mean time, using what’s left to continue washing away blood and grime. A cut lower on Bucky’s right arm. Scrapes all down his shins. The temporary absence of water lets him get a better look at the stab wound too, still oozing faintly, the blood mixing with water on Bucky’s skin and running down, down, down before it drips into the tiny bit of liquid left and then onto the bare porcelain.

“Let me know if it’s too hot.”

The water comes out ice cold at first, but Bucky doesn’t even flinch at it, sitting patiently while it turns warm and Steve adjusts it, thrusting his forearm under the spray over and over trying to get it right.

“Is that good? Do you want it hotter? Colder?” 

Bucky blinks at him.

Steve doesn’t know why he says the next thing, but it feels important.

“You’re allowed to want things, Bucky.”

Bucky stares at Steve for a long few seconds before jerking his chin down again. Shifting to reach his flesh arm behind him, he settles it under the spray.

“Hotter? Just a little.”

Steve obliges, one corner of his mouth twitching when Bucky actually sighs. He finally peels off the side of the tub, sinking down into the water and letting his eyes close for the briefest of moments.

Apparently his previous position had been hiding a pretty nasty slash across his abdomen.

“I’m gonna wash your stomach now.”

Bucky opens one eye to look at him when he dips the sponge in the water, but closes it again before he actually drags it across the wound. It takes a few minutes to slowly strip the wound of dried blood and reveal the newly formed scab beneath.

All that’s left after that is the stab wound, blood trailing lazily over Bucky’s side. Steve will have to put some butterflies on it if nothing else, which means he’ll need to clean it anyway after the bath. It’s not bleeding urgently enough that it can’t wait, so that’s what it’ll do.

Dropping the sponge in the water, Steve sits back, content to let Bucky enjoy this new bath until it goes cold. He looks so peaceful, bruises and all, his head tilted back against the porcelain. Steve still wants to touch his hair, to feel it slide between his fingers the way it used to when they kissed or made love or just held each other close.

“Bucky, could-” Steve cuts himself off and inhales.

Objectively, it’s not a wholly unnecessary thing to do. Bucky’s hair looks like it’s gone a couple weeks without a wash at least, strands of it clumping together with oil. It has to itch—like it did back in the war when they’d been out on a mission for a good few weeks without access to a shower or even enough water for a spit bath.

But it still feels selfish to ask with how much he wants it.

Bucky breaks the silence, mumbling quietly.

“You’re allowed to want things, Stevie.”

The nickname zings right into Steve’s bones, rattling around inside of him and making his heart thump wildly against his ribs.

“That hair of yours could use a scrub.”

Bucky doesn’t respond for a moment, but when he does, he levels Steve with a soft look and the barest hint of a smile.

“You and my damn hair, Rogers.”

Steve actually laughs, a strangled sort of thing because he’s really here—Bucky, his Bucky—seven decades later and naked in Steve’s bath tub, bleeding but not broken. A few years ago he’d been furious that God or the universe had sent him so far away from his life to a time where he was utterly alone.

But he hadn’t been alone. He’d just been waiting.

“I’d get it just right with the pomade and there you were.”

“If I remember right, you used to melt when I put my hands in your hair. How many times did I follow you down because you grabbed me by the back of the neck?”

“Yeah well putting my mouth on yours was the best way to shut you the hell up.”

They’re staring at each other now, Steve smiling, his entire face twitching because he wants to sob with gratitude at the same time. Bucky’s grin is more subdued, but it’s there. And it’ll take time, Steve knows, before either of them are settled. It’ll take time for them to move past the things they’ve seen and done in this life and the one before.

But they can do it all together now, as it always should have been.

Bucky slowly slides deeper into the tub, wincing a bit as the movement pulls at his wounds. He dips his head into the water and then comes back up, hair dripping down onto his shoulders.

“Go on. Far be it from me to deny you your perversions, sweetheart.”

Steve’s shampoo is some off-brand that had been one of the cheapest in the store but hadn’t smelled as chemically offensive as some of the others. He pops the lid and squirts a little into his palm, moving to position himself up higher on his knees.

Bucky actually quivers when Steve buries his fingers between the strands, scraping blunt nails slowly across his scalp to massage the suds in deeper. He doesn’t rush it, enjoying the way the soapy tendrils feel slithering over his skin.

He spends at least a full ten minutes lazily scrubbing, watching Bucky relax beneath him. After he guides Bucky’s head back and helps him rinse it clean, they go again—Steve working conditioner into the ends, then lazily stroking Bucky’s head while it soaks in.  
  
“Guess we should get you out,” Steve says, when they’re done and when Bucky’s as clean as he can be. Steve stands up and grabs the towel off the rack, unfolding it and holding it open. It’s white and it’ll definitely end up stained if not ruined, but Steve doesn’t care. Bucky can ruin everything Steve owns as long as he keeps breathing.

Slowly, Bucky steps out, his feet leaving sloshy wet footprints on the mat when Steve envelops him in the towel, wrapping him up in soft, fluffy cotton. He doesn’t mean for Bucky to end up in his arms in the process, and he definitely doesn’t mean for Bucky to rest his head on the arm of his tee shirt, water soaking through to Steve’s skin almost immediately.

But it’s okay. It’s more than okay.

“Remember when I had that fever?”

Bucky hums.

“Which one exactly?”

“Gosh, what year was it? 41 maybe? I’m gonna put my hand on your head by the way.”  
  
And then Steve’s brushing his hair again, water beading at the ends and streaking his fingertips.

“Woke up sweating in the middle of January,” Bucky says. “Skin like a sidewalk in July.”

“You freaked out and took me down the hall and dunked me in the bath tub. The water was freezing and I was-”

“Hissing at me like a stray alley cat, yeah I remember. And nosy Mrs. Cheevers came out in the hallway in her slippers and I just knew somehow she could tell and the police were gonna come the next day.”

“I remember after, back in the apartment after the fever broke.”

Bucky leans back, giving Steve the opportunity to slowly raise the towel and start to squeeze the water from his hair.

“You were asleep.”

“Was I?” Steve smirks. “And miss hearing you say that for the first time?”

“Ha. You really think that was the first time, pal?”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Steve, I started telling you stuff in your sleep when I was twelve? Thirteen? Point is, I knew. For a long time, Stevie. And I didn’t think you could ever know until you…”

“When was it then? I’d like to know.”

Bucky furrows his brow, leaning his head back into Steve’s touch through the towel. Steve can tell the exact moment he finds the memory because he meets his eyes again. The smile comes a little easier this time and Steve wants to somehow reach out and gather it in his hands and keep it for the next time Bucky finds it hard.

“You remember Dugan talking about how whispering stuff to people in their sleep could change their behavior when they were awake, that he’d read it in some paper somewhere?”

“Yeah, he said we should play phonographs of someone saying ‘surrender’ over Berlin every night and then spent three weeks trying to convince Morita he didn’t want to smoke anymore so he could have his rations.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he wasn’t too far off. The night before I turned 17, that’s the first time I said it.” 

“Your mouth tasted like your ma’s orange cake.”

“So did yours. Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck?”

“It’s still true, you know. They took a lot from me that I might not get back, but they didn’t take that.”

“It’s still true for me too. It never won’t be.”  
  
“It’s gonna be a long time before I’m okay, and I think I’ll be different even when I am, probably already was even before the train. But the universe has some constants, Stevie—gravity, the rotation of the Earth, the way the subway smells. And the fact that no matter who I am or how long it’s been or what’s happened to me in between, I’ll always belong to you.”  
  
“Yeah, well, end of the line, right?”

“I love you too, pal.”

Steve stares at him, parts of him still dripping onto the tile despite his efforts to dry him off.

“I missed you so much it felt like dying.”

It’s a day of role reversals for both of them, it seems. Because before Steve can finish asking, Bucky kisses him first, a soft sweet press of lips heavy with the weight of love and loss and love again.

Steve holds him until he starts to shiver. 

Later, Bucky wakes them both up screaming. Steve’s living room becomes a quiet confessional for some of the soldier’s crimes, Bucky muttering them into one of Steve’s throw pillows where he grips it tight against his chest.

Steve listens over the quiet background noise of some cartoon about a burger shop. When Bucky finally lets him touch him again, he curls his arms around his chest and revels in the faint thump, thump beneath his palm.

“Who am I, Steve?” Bucky asks hoarsely, his flesh and metal hands both digging into Steve’s arm.

“You’re James Buchanan Barnes, Bucky, my best friend and the man I’ve loved since before I knew what that meant. You were made in Brooklyn, New York like me. Not in some lab. You’re a son, a brother, a fellow artist, a mathematical genius, a saint for putting up with me even now…”

“Steve.”

“And you’re a prisoner of war who finally, _finally_ got to come home.”

Silence except for the city and the TV. It stretches on long enough that Steve actually thinks Bucky’s fallen asleep.

“Sorry for waking you up.”

“Don’t be. It’s not the kind of thing you have to apologize for. Besides, you’re not the only one with nightmares, Buck.” Steve presses a kiss to the crown of his head.

Steve doesn’t say the other thing that floats across his mind:

I think we’ve both slept more than enough for a lifetime.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was sparked by the art of the incredibly talented [@GoAndGetTheGun](https://twitter.com/goandgetthegun/status/1099877914789568513). Click through to be punched in the feelings. 
> 
> Thank you so much for giving me permission to play in this beautiful sandbox. <3
> 
> I can also be found on Twitter at [@BiStarBucky](https://twitter.com/BiStarBucky)


End file.
